"The harpy... She didn't talk to me. She had prescribed notes, paid, and we let her in. I didn't see her again after that."

"I was told she was as big as me? Why do you think it was a woman?"

"No, she wasn't that tall, not even close. She wasn't even taller than me."

"That would still be very tall for a female harpy."

"Thank you."

"Have you ever been to Hylla? They have what feels like only 6 men in the country and they look like women too. Are you sure it wasn't a man?"

"I'm very sure it was a woman. She looked like a woman, had breasts and a reeking bird cunt."

"You patted her down?"

"Yes." he sighed, continuing to turn the pages. "I had to do it. Those suckers were scared of her."

"And you checked her crotch?"

"Of course. I'm not going to let one of those creatures in here if she's got something on her."

It seems he did, but pointing that out did not do me any favors.

"Why were they afraid of her? It's just a harpy, right?"

"Yes, it is, but you have to know, she was very scary. She didn't speak, looked grim, and wore a mouth guard like that." He made a hand gesture like he was pulling a scarf over his face. While talking he kept reading his newspaper and glancing at me.

"Eye color?"

"Blue?"

"What kind of clothes?"

"Cheap outdoor clothes. The stuff looked like it came out of a dumpster, and she smelled like a kitchen drain."

"Was she wet?"

"Whatever you mean, everything on her was wet. It had been raining."

"She was here in the evening?"

"Yes."

"It's not unusual for her to smell when the wings were unwashed."

"Yeah, they're pretty filthy creatures..."

"What color were the wings?"

"Black."

I shook my head.

"A harpy's wings can be one color, but not just black or white. What other color was there?"

"None. They were just black."

No, the wings were certainly not just black, at least not really. Making that clear might bring some benefits.

"If they were just black, then they were dyed."

"I wouldn't say it was pretty."

"She's probably wanted or planning something."

"You're saying she's a criminal? I figured as much."

With that at the latest, the Harypie would probably be suspected of murder, or at the very least, she would be accused of being an accessory to suicide.

"You better write down everything you know. I bet I wasn't the last person to ask about her."

"I guess I will then.... Ah, I think she had a tattoo on her hand. She was wearing finger gloves, but it looked like she had letters on her fingers."

A memory hit me like a bolt of lightning.

"On both hands?"

"Could be. I wasn't really looking at it."

It was on both hands, for sure.

"Okay, I'm going to go now."

"Yeah, get out of here."

"Are you going to let me out?"

"The door's open." he muttered stubbornly, continuing to read in silence.

I left the next room and went to the door. I pressed the handle and pulled it inward. He really hadn't locked it... Before I left the entrance room, I looked one last time back through the window in the door to the interrogation room. The woman was sitting quietly at the table. Her expression was one of contentment.

I pulled the door closed, then followed the hallway back downstairs.

The woman was certainly no longer in her right mind. It would be a mistake to believe everything she had said. She was arrested then, kneeling motionless and covered in blood in front of the family's house. She was badly injured, with a large shard in her right hand and a dead baby in her arms. The baby had died from a fall from the window. The shard was from the garden door. She had smashed the door herself with a stone from the garden. The shards were in the trash in the kitchen. The curtains to the door were drawn. Right in the hallway they found the body of her husband. His blood was spread all over the hallway up to the upper floor. The sequence of events was probably similar to what she had described. The baby had died. She had broken the window and disposed of the broken pieces. She had waited in the baby's room until her husband came home, then she had surprised him and rammed a long shard down his throat. There had been resistance. Her husband was quite a brute. With one punch he broke two of her ribs and nearly killed her. With another that missed her, he had hit the door of the room so hard that it was half off its hinges. Following that, he had still dragged himself down the entire hallway to the front door. Eventually, however, the injury was too severe. He had lost too much blood, so that he fell into the wardrobe and destroyed it as well.

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The mirror of the wardrobe was also broken, but the shards of it were not in the hallway, but in the trash in the kitchen as well. There was no blood on the broken pieces. The mirror had probably been broken before. There were no broken pieces in the hallway at all. There was no glass either. Her husband had come home from a pub that night and had been a little drunk, but he was not known to be an alcoholic. No alcohol was found in the house either. There was also no evidence of domestic violence. There was also nothing in the woman's medical records to suggest that. The day before, the two had been on a picnic with friends, and according to their testimony, they had behaved normally there. So it was as if the woman had gone crazy from one day to the next.

But maybe it wasn't overnight. Overall, it sounded like she was overburdened with the child. Maybe she hated it too, but didn't want to admit that. It wouldn't be a phenomenon and there was a lot that spoke for it; especially that she always just called it 'it' and didn't even know the name anymore. The wall she had mentioned again and again was really on the way to a store, even within sight of the house and her handbag was also there, but still she could have taken the baby with her. That the friends hadn't noticed anything wouldn't be unusual either. Couples often pretend that everything is fine to their friends.

She was overburdened with the child. Maybe she began to hate the child. Maybe she also hated her husband for not helping her. The child died. After killing her husband that night, she dragged herself outside to the front of the house, knelt down, and gouged out both of her eyes. Then, as the sun rose, she slashed her left arm with the shard. A neighbor had seen it from the window and informed a city guard who was nearby.

The city guard had saved her. From the injuries, it was unlikely that she would have survived if he had not been there. Among the other injuries, her right hand was injured by the shard and she was missing the little finger and ring finger of that hand. These injuries matched a beak, but it could have been something with a similar shape. She could have done it herself, just as she had smashed the garden door herself. She could have read about an incident with the raven and then made it all up. In the baby's room there was a changing table by the window. Had she put the baby there herself, opened the window and hoped it would fall off while she was shopping? From the wall, she then looked back at the house, but when the child really was at the window, she changed her mind, ran back, but arrived too late?

In any case, she was insane. But not for much longer. The woman would die from the pill. Even if she had already spit it out, it would just take longer. It won't be easy to prove what it was. Surely they will think she didn't tolerate her medication and leave it at that. If it did turn out otherwise, then the harpy would become the prime suspect. But that also depended on how much visitors the woman really had.

That Violet had been here at one time was quite possible, but unimportant. She was a mercenary of high rank and from the high nobility. She was so prestigious that they paid her by the hour, not by the job, as was common in the business. If she didn't feel like it anymore, she simply stopped. She was paid anyway. The paternalism made one jealous.

I would describe Violet character-wise as conceited and manipulative to the extreme. She was good at recognizing what you wanted and good at making you think you were going to get it from her. It may have sounded like I didn't like her? That wasn't the case. No mouth was as enticing as hers. No woman licked her lips so seemingly at random. Her voice was deep and like an instrument that didn't exist. You knew it was her right away. Nothing in the world had such a sound. She was like opium. She was addictive and you did things for her that you regretted afterwards. But it didn't matter so much anymore....

She had probably once been commissioned to catch a Ram. With her reputation, it wouldn't be unusual for one to go directly to her instead of a guild. She was here then. She lived nearby anyway. But she was a mercenary and not a hunter. She probably couldn't find a Ram and just cashed in. At some point, the client had probably then realized that he was just giving her money, and it was probably the same client that I had.

As for the ominous warning, I thought nothing of it. She always did things like that. She liked to be mysterious. She was a spider with many webs.

I knew the harpy as well. Blue eyes and tattooed hands with letters on the fingers. I had met her in Hylla and had recruited her there as a assistant. She was still a little brat then, no more than 14 years old. Nevertheless, she was already almost up to my chest. Even then she had not spoken. She was not very social. Of course, she didn't know the language here either. For this and other reasons I had chosen her. A helper with a tight mouth was worth its weight in gold in this business.

She flew across the ocean alone and entered the country illegally. I had told her where I would meet her, but that had not been necessary.

Days before the meeting I woke up at night and she was lying next to me in bed. I was so startled that I almost beat her to death, but I recognized her just in time by her wings. She had cried anyway. She was wet and stinky and had musty clothes on. I don't know how long she had slept next to me. I was in a hotel 200 kilometers from the meeting place. My room was on the eleventh floor. I think she had come in through the window, but I don't know for sure to this day.

Her parents were probably dead or had abandoned her. I could not blame them. The brat was scary. She had survived in the canyons of Hylla alone. She had been a hunter since she was 12. She always carried a coiled three-bladed dagger in her crotch, like some kind of dick substitute. She wanted to avoid that her prey could still save itself. Maybe it was also something sexual for her. She was at that age and it wouldn't be unusual for her. She already didn't have all the cups in the cupboard back then and now probably even less than before. It also wouldn't be unusual if she was wanted. She always was. But no one would find her.

Her wings were actually not black, but white with blue shreds. She dyed them, because the natural colors were not optimal for life in the undergrowth. After one job, I had to let her go back then because she liked blood too much. Killing was her passion. Her prey of choice were pets and babies, because she could grab them and take them into the forest...

I left the facility through the steel door. I waved to the guards at the main entrance and headed out. When I looked back at the building from the barred gate, there was a red glow at the open window. After a flash of sparks, it went out. Shortly after, yellow light fell into the hallway, then it quickly went dark again. Had he looked back at me?

I don't care. I'm leaving the property. I'll stay at the inn until the weather improves. Tonight I will read through the files of the client once again. First of all, I want to check if the woman's story is the same as her testimony back then. When the weather is better, I will first have a look at the rope and then I will go hunting. After all, I hadn't come here just to visit the woman. It was a coincidence that she was here. But maybe not...

Six days ago, a Ram was sighted in the woods of these mountains. That's why I'm here.

For the hunt.

.../ Ende